


Trust in Dreaming

by StarlingGirl



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: 5 Times, F/M, shameless fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-04-23
Packaged: 2017-12-09 07:44:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/771749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlingGirl/pseuds/StarlingGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times that Clint Barton fell asleep on Maria Hill, and the one time she fell asleep on him.</p><p>(Or, the moment that Clint Barton realised that Maria Hill was more than just a superior.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust in Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> Written for wasthatnotprocedure on tumblr, who needed fluff after a knee operation. I hope you feel better soon, dearest!
> 
> I don't know if anyone ships this. But now I do. Really, really hard.

 

**_One_ **

 

Clint will never fail to feel like an utter creep when he suggests sharing body heat; it feels like the worst pick-up line in his repertoire even though he’s never actually used it as one. So when Maria Hill turns to him, hand to her earpiece, and says “extraction is still several hours out,” and holds open the one silver thermal blanket they have between them impatiently, he breathes a sigh of relief.

“So glad you were the one who suggested it,” he grins as he sidles up to her and insinuates himself under the foil. She gives him a look, the kind that implies she’s only not punching him because she’s conserving her energy, and he shrugs. “You of all people ought to know how many sexual harassment claims are filed against me. It’s not my fault I sound seedy when I’m trying to sound professional.”

She snorts something that might be laughter, and then they come across the awkward problem of two grown people trying to share one thermal blanket whilst trying to retain a sensible level of personal space. It’s not long before they realise it’s impossible.

“It's okay ma’am,” Clint says, generously. “I won’t file a harassment claim if you accidentally touch me inappropriately.”

“Barton,” she says, warningly, and then seems to give up with any kind of justification; she merely turns her back to him so that the blanket is wrapped around his shoulders and then around hers, clutching the edges together in front of her with a tight grip.

He wraps his arms around her because it allows more of the blanket to slide forward – but he’s neither stupid not suicidal, and instead of letting his hands rest on her hips or her waist, he clutches at the edges of the blanket too, further down, helps keep it closed against the piercing cold of the Russian winter.

“Could be worse,” he says after a moment, and there’s a short silence before she nods.

“Could be Stark,” she murmurs in agreement.

After ten minutes, they wordlessly make the decision to relocate to the floor, since standing is not only uncomfortable, but also exposing the largest surface area to the cold wind that manages to force its way through the cracks in the walls of the ruined building they’ve taken shelter in.

And so they end up huddled in a corner, Clint’s back against the wall and Maria still pressed against his chest, his drawn up knees pressed against her sides.

And if he falls asleep – well, it’s been a long three days, and his world is gritty with the painful wakefulness of the criminally sleep-deprived, and he’s mostly sure that Maria wouldn’t let him drop off if there was an immediate risk of hypothermia.

When he wakes, his fingers are curled across her ribs, and she’s still awake.

“Extraction will be here in fifteen,” is all she says, and Clint’s quick to remove his hands.

 

**_Two_ **

 

He can feel the giddy high of blood loss pulling at the edges of his mind; everything sounds far away and looks too-bright, despite the darkness nibbling at the corners of his vision like fish feeding on the bloated carcass of something dead in the water.

(The morbid image won’t leave him, and he worries about what it is that’s dead in the water. Not him, he thinks, because he can feel hands on his face.)

“Barton, you stay with me,” he hears, and his eyes cast around wildly for the owner of the familiar voice, struggling to focus on the face in front of him that’s made up of equal parts concern and anger – and as a voice in his mind whispers _Maria_ , he wonders why she’s angry, and hopes that he hasn’t done something wrong.

“Sorry,” he manages to push out around a tongue that feels too heavy for his mouth, his words slow and stumbling. He sees her mouth tighten as he succumbs to sleep and feels small with the thought that he’s disappointed her.

He wakes in medical and she’s still there – “checking you’re alive before I bother with your paperwork” – and this time her face is clearer and he understands the anger is not for him, but for the bastard with the semi-automatic who’d landed him here.

 

**_Three_ **

 

He’s drunk.

He’s drunk but not in the fun way, and where his fingers are wrapped around the bottle they are white with the tightness of their grip.

He’s drunk, and he’s trying to forget the things which make him a monster.

The times he’s killed and the times he’s failed to save, the time he fired on his own superiors and the time that he wasn’t around to keep Coulson from doing something stupid. He takes another mouthful of cheap liquor, and tries to drive away his ghosts.

The fact that he doesn’t register the presence of another person until there are fingers gently prying his own from the bottle is an indication of how far gone he is; he raises his eyes enough to see the deep blue of a SHIELD uniform and decides that’s enough reassurance for now. He’s not entirely sure he’d have bothered to defend himself anyway, if whoever it was hadn’t been a friendly.

“This isn’t going to help anything,” says a voice, and even in the deepest stages of intoxication, Clint’s spine pulls a little straighter at Maria’s disapproving tones. Only for a second, though, before he remembers that he’s on leave anyway, and that it doesn’t really matter what he says or does; no one at SHIELD is going to trust him again, not after he spent so long with Loki tickling his sinuses from the inside.

“Helps me feel mis’r’ble,” he slurs, and covers his face with his hands. “An’ that’s what I deserve.”

There’s a sound that might be a sigh, but the emotion behind it – weariness or despair or sympathy – is not discernible to Clint, and he stays where he is. He’s not functional enough to register surprise when the couch settles a little and the warmth of Maria appears next to him.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she says, and Clint doesn’t think about turning a little and pressing his face into her neck, because he’s drunk and he’s so tired of not being trusted, and she will always trust him.

He doesn’t remember in the morning, but she does the most unexpected thing, and after a brief hesitation wraps an arm around him and _stays_.

 

**_Four_ **

 

“Are we nearly there yet?"

He’s not expecting the dead arm he receives at Maria’s fist, because much as she loves to threaten him, she doesn’t usually follow through – especially in front of junior agents. In her book, it practically counts as unprofessional fraternisation.

“Um, ouch. Did someone wake up on the wrong side of bed this morning, ma’am?” he says testily, rubbing at his tingling arm, nose wrinkled in discomfort.

“If you’re going to act like a child, I’m going to treat you like one,” she says, calmly, and Clint narrows his eyes because it almost looks like there’s a hint of pink flush high on her cheeks. He decides it must just be the warmth of the interior of the jet – the one that he’s categorically _not_ sulking about not getting to fly, damn it – and scowls some more.

“What, you give children dead arms?” he snorts. She fixes him with a look as he mutters “remind me never to let you babysit.”

“As if anyone would ever let _you_ have kids,” she says, with an eye roll, and Clint does his level best to not let the sharp sort of feeling that pierces just under his left ribs show on his face; he knows full well that no one _would_ let him have kids, and it’s not even as though he particularly wants them – but sometimes it still hits him hard, nevertheless.

Despite his efforts, she seems to realise that she’s said something wrong, and she sighs a little.

“Barton, if you’re that bored, go to sleep. It’s still a few hours until we land.”

It sounds like a dismissal but Clint recognises it for what it is; an invitation to close his eyes and ignore the hell out of everyone in this jet while he schools his emotions back into place. He does so, and leans on her shoulder because it’ll annoy her.

She doesn’t object.

 

**_Five_ **

 

He’s had a nightmare – a series of nightmares, the worst kind that leave him sweating and shaking and more often than not physically ill for hours afterwards.

He’s had a nightmare and Natasha’s not here and Phil is dead and Tony is coding and Steve doesn’t quite understand and Thor is off-planet and no matter what anyone says Clint is still nervous about waking Bruce up unexpectedly.

That leaves Maria.

Maybe she’ll open the door and he’ll say “I had a bad dream” like a five-year-old and she’ll tell him that’s what SHIELD employs counsellors for, but right now he’s shivering despite the heat on his skin and he needs someone to tell him what’s real, tell him where he is, tell him _what color are his eyes._

And in the end she takes one look at him and steps back and he stumbles in through the door, makes it to her bed – sheets tangled with remnants of her sleep – before his legs gives out and he might be crying and perhaps there are screams pressing at his throat, begging to escape into the semi-darkness.

“Barton,” she says. “Clint, you’re okay.”

Her hands on his bare skin are an anchor, smoothing over the line of his spine and the planes of his shoulders and the dozens of assorted scars that litter his flesh.

“What color--?” he chokes.

“Your eyes aren’t blue,” she tells him, and he almost chokes with relief that she knows, that she understands. And still her hands wander in soothing patterns across his back, and she coaxes him gently back down from his panicked high, calms his racing heart and tells him that none of it was his fault, none of it was real.

She tells him “your name is Clint Francis Barton, you were born on September 15th 1974 in Waverly, Iowa…” repeats the words like a mantra until he is certain of who he is and the things he has done – more importantly, of the things he has not done, the things that were done by his hand but not his will, the things which are not and will never be his fault.

The arms of sleep take him again, eventually, and his dreams are tempered by the sensation of gentle fingers tracing the story mapped out in silver scars on his back.

 

**_Plus One_ **

 

The knock at his door is soft and uncertain, and if he’d been asleep it wouldn’t have roused him. As it is, he swings his legs from bed, where he’s been occupied awkwardly massaging a still-aching shoulder and staring at his ceiling in the darkness, and pads over to the door.

When he opens it, she’s already turning to leave, as though she’d made the decision that he wouldn’t come to the door already. She freezes, and he tilts his head, fingers coming out to brush her arm.

It’s strange, seeing her here in a thin tank top and baggy sweatpants, nothing like the put-together professional she always is during the daylight hours (and most of the night-time hours too, to be fair.)

“Are you okay?” he asks. She turns back. “Nightmares?”

The question feels like a personal one, and he wonders for a minute if he’s crossed a line somewhere, because he feels a little lost and he no longer knows whether to say “ma’am” or “Maria” when she doesn’t answer.

“No,” she murmurs, after long moments, and she won’t meet his eye.

As she had once done for him, he stands back from the door and leaves her room to enter of her own volition; she does so, hesitantly at first and then with the determination of a woman who’s scared she might change her mind about something.

She beelines for his bed and curls herself in the mess of sheets; Clint stares for a moment before he kicks the door shut and returns to the bed himself, lies on his side and stares at the faint gleam of light that reflects from her eyes beneath a sweep of dark brown hair.

“Are you okay?” he repeats, and gets the smallest of nods in return, accompanied by a reach of fingers that brush the skin of his neck before they retract, as though his skin has burned her fingertips. “It’s okay,” he tells her, because he doesn’t know what it is, but it _is_ okay.

Questing fingers find his skin once more, slide up the column of his throat and linger around his jaw. Clint thinks he understands, but Maria has always been a closed book and he doesn’t want to misread her, doesn’t want to do something stupid.

“It’s okay,” he says once more, and he’s starting to sound like a broken record as his own fingers wrap gently around her wrist. The faint exhale he receives in return, the way her muscles relax and the way she pushes herself forward towards his warmth are enough to convince him that he’s not misreading anything, and he doesn’t hesitate to pull her closer with strong arms, hold her with broad hands that have longed to touch and never quite realised.

(The kiss he presses against her temple is something else altogether, something he’s not quite ready to verbalise and she’s not quite ready to hear; years and years of trust and loyalty that had built themselves into something else so slowly he hadn’t had time to recognise it for what it was until this moment.)

In his arms, her breathing evens.

For once, Clint isn’t the one who sleeps. He focuses on the solid heat of Maria in his arms, and tries not to think too hard about what this is, how this is going to work, if this fragile and delicate newborn _thing_ will be strong enough to survive the soft sunbeams of first light.

In her sleep, Maria mumbles something softly, and Clint can’t help the smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth.

He is Clint Barton and she is Maria Hill, and they trust each other with the vulnerability of sleep. For now, everything else is unimportant.


End file.
